Well the apartment is decorated (as well as undecorated several times so far and put back together courtesy of my cats), the cards are written out and addressed and ABSOLUTELY NOTHING else is done for me. Today was supposed to be my shopping day but that didn't end up happening, I was out and about all day running errands for myself and a couple of friends who needed rides here and there and I ended up getting absolute zero done. *sigh* atleast I'm off on Friday as well so hopefully I can spend that day for myself. Thankfully my family and I are having a "zero gift" Christmas cause we are all pretty much broke, but I want to try and find some kind of little something for my 9 employees and best buddy. (ideas for cheap employee gifts are most welcome!! please!!)

I'm not even talking about the food shopping nuh uh no way!! I have to feed everyone else and cater their parties for them I have no desire to cook or do anything for myself.

well, i bought the last 2 gifts today. sent out 20 of my 26 cards (couldn't get the freakin' stamp machine to take my crinkly old 5 dollar bill so i had to leave without stamps for the rest). the reason the house was decorated was because the bf was out of town for a week and i was bored.

Originally posted by fluff You sound as though you are pacing yourself quite nicely Nancy.
Well on schedule to get everything done.

The way things go, I'll be this done at this time Christmas Eve.
Then I will have to scramble. I do agree with Clarabella and Summer, I don't have a ton of Christmas spirt this year. Luckily the kids keep me moving to remind me of what needs to be done.
:santagrin

Originally posted by libra1022 but I want to try and find some kind of little something for my 9 employees and best buddy. (ideas for cheap employee gifts are most welcome!! please.

How cheap?
One year my boss got us all gift certificates at the place we always eat lunch at. (like he said, it was his way of buying us lunch without having to actually eat with us...he was always a litle scared of us)

Employee gifts are so hard....one year I got a nice one with all the little things I use at work that they wouldn't buy for us (post it notes bigger then a stamp, nice big pens, color coated paper clips)...but then other years it's been bad (the boss who "painted" angels for us because we were all "angels in her eyes" mine looked pretty scary.)
Gift Certificates from bosses are nice because then you can get what you want. But the problem is how much are you willing to spend and where to get them.

Last year I got them all the things they needed for work (pens/sharpie markers/boxcutters) along with a coffee mug filled with candy....that's my last ditch item if I can't figure anything else out again, but since they are the same group of people I really want to try and be a little different. Honestly right now I'm thinking about heading up to Regal Cinemas and get them enough of a gift certificate for them to take 2 people to the movies, it's a little over my budget, but it always seems to go over really good. I was trying to get out for $10 each cause money is so tight, but it should be $15 if I do the movie ticket thing (I'm just lucky a night showing of a movie here is 7.50 so it would balance out nicely).

I would rather have cash than a gift certificte persoanlly, unless the person who bought it for me went to the trouble of buying it for a store I really liked.

You can get them for entire Malls here though. So you can use it in any store in the Mall. You can just go to the dollar store and buy something for a buck and they'll have to give you the remainder back in cash.

Now I'm trying to remember the darn crab recipe I used to make all the time, haven't made it for a couple years, my sister in law is begging for it, I can't find the recipe. It's not at Kraft foods, not at any recipe place I've looked.